mility, of triumph and tenderness, of glorying and sorrowing, is the very spirit of Christianity. It was the spirit of Jesus-the conqueror and the sufferer. Death was before him; and yet his thoughts were of triumph. Victory was in his view; and yet, what a victory! No laurel crown was upon his head; no flush of pride was upon his brow-but meekness was enthroned there; no exultation flashed from his eye-but tears flowed from it :-" Jesus wept.' Come, then, to us, that spirit at once of courage and meekness; of fortitude and gentleness; of a life hopeful and happy, but thoughtful of death; of a world bright and beautiful, but passing away! So let us live and act, and think and feel; and let us thank the good Providence, the good ordination of heaven, that has made the dead our teachers. III. But they teach us more. They not only leave their own enshrined and canonized virtues for us to love and imitate; they not only gather about us the glorious and touching associations of the past, to hallow and dignify this world to us, and to throw the soft veil of memory over all its scenes; but they open a future world to our vision, and invite us to its blessed abodes. They open that world to us, by giving, in their own deaths, a strong proof of its existence. The future, indeed, to mere earthly views, is often "a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Truly, death is "without any order." There is in it such a total disregard to circumstances, as shows that it cannot be an ultimate event. That must be connected with something else that cannot be final, which, considered as final, puts all the calculations of wisdom so utterly at defiance. The tribes of animals, the classes and species of the vegetable creation, come to their perfection, and then die." But is there any such order for human beings? Do the generations of mankind go down to the grave in ranks and processions? Are the human, like the vegetable races, suffered to stand till they have made provision for their successors, before they depart? No; without order, without discrimination, without provision for the future, or remedy for the past, the children of men depart. They die-the old, the young, the most useless and those most needed, the worst and the best, alike die; and if there be no scenes beyond this life, if there be no circumstances nor allotments to explain the mystery, then all around us is, as it was to the doubting spirit of Job, "a land of darkness as darkness itself." The blow falls, like the thunderbolt beneath the dark cloud; but it has not even the intention, the explanation, that belongs to that dread minister. The stroke of death must be more reckless than even the lightning's flash: yes, that solemn visitation that cometh with so many dread signs-the body's dissolution, the spirit's extremity, the winding up of the great scene of life-has not even the meaning that belongs to the blindest agents in nature, if there be no reaction, no revelation hereafter! Can this be? Doth God take care for things animate and inanimate, and will he not care for us? Let us look at it for a moment. I have seen one die—the delight of his friends, the pride of his kindred, the hope of his country: but he died! How beautiful was that offering upon the altar of death! The fire of genius kindled in his eye; the generous affections of youth mantled in his cheek; his foot was upon the threshold of life; his studies, his preparations for honoured and useful life, were completed; his breast was filled with a thousand glowing, and noble, and never yet expressed aspirations: but he died! He died! while another, of a nature dull, coarse, and unrefined; of habits low, base, and brutish; of a pro. mise that had nothing in it but shame and misery-such an one, I say, was suffered to encumber the earth. Could this be, if there were no other sphere for the gifted, the aspiring, and the approved, to act in ? Can we believe that the energy just trained for action, the embryo thought just bursting into expression, the deep and earnest passion of a noble nature just swelling into the expansion of every beautiful virtue, should never speak, should never unfold itself? Can we believe that all this should die; while meanness, corruption, sensuality, and every deformed and dishonoured power should live? No; ye goodly and glorious ones! ye godlike in youthful virtue !-ye die not in vain: ye teach, ye assure us, that ye are gone to some world of nobler life and action. I have seen one die: she was beautiful; and beautiful were the ministries of life that were given her to fulfil. Angelic loveliness enrobed her; and a grace, as if it were caught from heaven, breathed in every tone, hallowed every affection, shone in every action-invested, as a halo, her whole existence, and made it a light and blessing, a charm and a vision of gladness to all around her: but she died! Friendship, and love, and parental fondness, and infant weakness, stretched out their hand to save her; but they could not save her; and she died! What! did all that loveliness die? Is there no land of the blessed and the lovely ones for such to live in? Forbid it reason!-religion!-bereaved affection, and undying love! forbid the thought! It cannot be that such die in God's counsel who live, even in frail human memory, for ever! I have seen one die-in the maturity of every power; in the earthly perfection of every faculty; when many temptations had been overcome, and many hard lessons had been learned; when many experiments had made virtue easy, and had given a facility to action, and a success to endeavour; when wisdom had been learnt from many mistakes, and a skill had been laboriously acquired in the use of many powers; and the being I looked upon had just compassed that most useful, most practical of all knowledge, how to live, and to act well and wisely: yet I have seen such an one die! Was all this treasure gained only to be lost? Were all these faculties trained only to be thrown into utter disuse? Was this instrument-the intelligent soul, the noblest in the universewas it so laboriously fashioned, and by the most varied and expensive apparatus, that, on the very moment of being finished, it should be cast away for ever? No, the dead, as we call them, do not so die. They carry our thoughts to another and a nobler existence. They teach us, and especially by all the strange and seemingly untoward circumstances of their departure from this life, that they and we shall live for ever. They open the future world, then, to our faith. They open it also, and in fine, to our affections. No person of reflection and piety can have lived long without beginning to find, in regard to the earthly objects that most interest him-his friends-that the balance is gradually inclining in favour of another world. How many, after the middle period of life, and especially in declining years, must feel, if the experience of life has had any just effect upon themthat the objects of their strongest attachment are not here. One by one the ties of earthly affections are cut asunder; one by one friends, companions, children, parents, are taken from us; for a time, perhaps, we are "in a state betwixt two," as was the apostle, not deciding altogether whether it is better to depart; but shall we not, at length, say with the disciples, when some dearer friend is taken, Let us go and die with him"? 66 The dead have not ceased their communication with us, though the visible chain is broken. If they are still the same, they must still think of us. As two friends on earth may know that they love each other, without any expression, without even the sight of each other; as they may know, though dwelling in different and distant countries, without any visible chain of communication, that their thoughts meet and mingle together, so may it be with two friends, of whom the one is on earth, and the other is in heaven. Especially where there is such an union of pure minds, that it is scarcely possible to conceive of separation; that union seems to be a part of their very being; we may believe that their friendship, their mutual sympathy, is beyond the power of the grave to break up. "But ah!" we say, "if there were only some manifestation; if there were only a glimpse of that blessed land; if there were, indeed, some messenger-bird, such as is supposed in some countries to come from the spirit-land, how eagerly should we question!" In the words of the poet we should say,— "But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, Can those who have loved forget? We call-but they answer not again Do they love-do they love us yet? We call them far through the silent night, And they speak not from cave or hill; We know, we know, that their land is bright, The poetic doubt we may answer with plain reasoning, and plainer Scripture. We may say, in the language of reason, if they live there, they love there. We may answer in the language of Jesus Christ, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." And again: "Have ye not read," saith our Saviour, "that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Then is it true that they live there; and they yet speak to us. From that bright sphere, from that calm region, from the bowers of life immortal, they speak to us. They say to us, "Sigh not in despair over the broken and defeated expectations of earth. Sorrow not as those who have no hope. Bear calmly and cheerfully thy lot. Brighten the chain of love of sympathy-of communion with all pure minds on earth and in heaven. Think, oh! think of the mighty and glorious company that fill the immortal regions! Light, life, beauty, beatitude, are here. Come, children of earth! come to the bright and blessed land!" I see no lovely features revealing themselves through the dim and shadowy veils of heaven. I see no angel forms enrobed with the bright clouds of eventide. But "I hear a voice saying, write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest-for they rest from their labours, and their works-works of piety and love recorded in our hearts, and kept in eternal remembrance-their works do follow them." Our hearts-their workmanship-do follow them. We will go and die with them. We will go and live with them for ever! Can I leave these meditations, my brethren, without paying homage to that religion which has brought life and immortality to light-without calling to mind that simple and touching acknowledgment of the good apostle, "I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Ah! how desolate must be the affections of a people that spurn this truth and trust! I have wandered among the tombs of such a people; I have wandered through that far-famed cemetery that overlooks, from its mournful brow, the gay and crowded metropolis of France; but among the many inscriptions upon those tombs, I read scarcely one-I read, -to state so striking a fact with numerical exactness-I read not more than four or five inscriptions in the whole Pere La Chaise, which made any consoling reference to a future life. I read, on those cold marble tombs, the lamentations of bereavement, in every affecting variety of phrase. On the tomb of a youth it was written, that "its brokenhearted parents, who spent their days in tears, and their nights in anguish, had laid down here their treasure and their hope. On the proud mausoleum, where friendship, companionship, love, had deposited their holy relics, it was constantly written, "Her husband inconsolable," His disconsolote wife," A brother left alone and unhappy," has raised this monument; but seldom-so seldom, that scarcely ever did the mournful record close with a word of hope-scarcely at all was to be read, amidst the marble silence of that world of the dead, that there is a life beyond, and that surviving friends hope for a blessed meeting again, where death comes no more. Oh, death!-dark hour to hopeless unbelief! hour to which, in that creed of despair, no hour shall succeed! being's last hour! to whose appalling darkness even the shadows of an avenging retribution were brightness and relief-death! what art thou to the Christian's assurance? Great hour of answers to life's prayer-great hour that shall break asunder the bond of life's ministry-hour of release from life's burden-hour of reunion with the loved and lost-what mighty hopes hasten to their fulfilment in thee! What longings, what aspirations, breathed in the still night, beneath the silent stars-what dread emotions of curiosity-what deep meditations of joy-what hallowed imaginings of never-experienced purity and bliss-what possibilities shadowing forth unspeakable realities to the soul, all verge to their consummation in thee! Oh, death! the Christian's death! what art thou, but the gate of life, the portal of heaven, the threshold of eternity! "Thanks be to God"-let us say it, Christians! in the comforting words of holy Scripture-" thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ! What hope can be 80 precious, as the hope in him? What emblems can speak to be reaved affection, or to dying frailty, like those emblems at once of suffering and triumph, which proclaim a crucified and risen Lord; which proclaim that Jesus the Forerunner has passed through death to immortal life? Well, that the great truth should be signalized and sealed upon our hearts in holy rites! Well, that amidst mortal changes, and hasting to the tomb, we should, from time to time, set up an altar, and say, "by this heaven-ordained token do we know that we shall live for ever!" God grant the fulfilment of this great hope-what matter all things beside?-God grant the fulfilment of this great hope, through Jesus Christ! |